I wonder which version of the source this is? Landon indicated the official release was not his final - the death sequence isnt perfect something about overlapping cells) - anyhow, if would be interesting is someone could compile this and see if its different than the official cart in some minor way.

This came off of 2 sets of tapes marked Dyer, which is unusual as most tape backups are of all directories of a DEC system at Atari. So when an individuals directory is the only part of a backup, it usually meant that one of the programs got his directory backed up special. There was a lot more on his backup tapes.

The code's for the Atari CAMAC VAX/VMS cross-assembler... Curt, any chance you can look through the archives, see if you can find anything relating to CAMAC? Source to the assembler would be perfect (but unlikely), documentation would be great, even a binary might be useful (there are VAX emulators out there).

Of course it won't be difficult to port the Donkey Kong sources to a different assembler (dasm or ca65), but it'd be really cool to be able to assemble the old sources in the old environment too...

And yes, I know, searching the archives is probably a momumental undertaking, and you've got a to-do list as long as my arm... just something to keep in mind if you happen to run across it.

I wonder which version of the source this is? Landon indicated the official release was not his final - the death sequence isnt perfect something about overlapping cells) - anyhow, if would be interesting is someone could compile this and see if its different than the official cart in some minor way.

The as-released-to-manufacturing version of DK was assembled with CAMAC (a Cross version of the AMAC assembler running on the Home Computer Division's MV-8000 minicomputer).

The listing file I see is dated Feb 24th, which seems early for completion of the project. If the enclosed code corresponds to the listing file, that's not a good thing because the listing ends at address $A59E, and I distinctly recall there being about 18 bytes left in the ROM (which would have had a limit of $C000). There's stuff missing from the PRN file (and the PRN file has errors). Maybe the PRN file is out of date with the rest of the code.

Additionally, someone's clearly been into this code trying to make it work under the Atari coin-op assembler and maybe MAC/65. Might have been me (I honestly don't remember). So I'd be surprised if this built at all, or if it did, if it worked.

Curt should find the source code to MadMac next (though 6502 assemblers are very easy to find).

The code's for the Atari CAMAC VAX/VMS cross-assembler... Curt, any chance you can look through the archives, see if you can find anything relating to CAMAC? Source to the assembler would be perfect (but unlikely), documentation would be great, even a binary might be useful (there are VAX emulators out there).

As far as I know, CAMAC was an MV/8000 thing and wasn't available on VAX/VMS. When we moved to the VAX/VMS systems we started using the same tools (assemblers, etc.) that the Coin-Op folks were using. Kind of painful, but their assemblers had some good ideas.

As far as I know, CAMAC was an MV/8000 thing and wasn't available on VAX/VMS. When we moved to the VAX/VMS systems we started using the same tools (assemblers, etc.) that the Coin-Op folks were using. Kind of painful, but their assemblers had some good ideas.

I was just guessing it was VMS due to the DCL-looking syntax in the *.CLI files...

I probably will end up doing a perl script that acts as a preprocessor, takes CAMAC input and spits out dasm or ca65 source. Be interesting to see what's different between this version and the release.

Yup, found all of them...Super Pacman, 2 different Pac Man demo's, Galaxian and Donkey Kong... I also found a status report from Philip Suen stating that you had to take over the DK project because the original programmer wasn't delivering milestones, was being secretive and just wasn't sticking to schedule.

There is some pretty extensive info, I will post it up this coming week. Technically if you really really wanted to code and assembled the "old school" way, I could provide all of the cross assemblers and anyone who's familiar with VMS could setup simH emulation on their PC and run a VAX/VMS system in emulation and actually work on the code just as it was done back in the day...

I will definitely work on it, I think it will be better to put a whole page(s) together on atarimuseum.com and post a link because it'll be several zip files of original tools and such, information on the environment, source code and so forth. I'll definitely put it together.

Curt

The code's for the Atari CAMAC VAX/VMS cross-assembler... Curt, any chance you can look through the archives, see if you can find anything relating to CAMAC? Source to the assembler would be perfect (but unlikely), documentation would be great, even a binary might be useful (there are VAX emulators out there).

Of course it won't be difficult to port the Donkey Kong sources to a different assembler (dasm or ca65), but it'd be really cool to be able to assemble the old sources in the old environment too...

And yes, I know, searching the archives is probably a momumental undertaking, and you've got a to-do list as long as my arm... just something to keep in mind if you happen to run across it.

I also found a status report from Philip Suen stating that you had to take over the DK project because the original programmer wasn't delivering milestones, was being secretive and just wasn't sticking to schedule.

Was that DK or DK Jr? I seem to remember that being about DK Jr. but I could be wrong.

Ah... very good point, these files were pulled from AOS backups, not DECbackups... HCD had 2 MV8000 Model 9000's.... damned great machines, AOS was a much improved VMS type OS and the Data Generals were just beautiful machines in general. I have a Vax 11/750 and a Microvax 4000-200 here in the office.

What I really want to get up and running is the RM05 I have down in the garage (no way that was making it up the stairs to the office, weighs over 500lbs!) and I have 22 300MB RM05 removable disk paks that need reading, those could very well contain some true treasures as far as code, emails and so forth.

Curt

The code's for the Atari CAMAC VAX/VMS cross-assembler... Curt, any chance you can look through the archives, see if you can find anything relating to CAMAC? Source to the assembler would be perfect (but unlikely), documentation would be great, even a binary might be useful (there are VAX emulators out there).

As far as I know, CAMAC was an MV/8000 thing and wasn't available on VAX/VMS. When we moved to the VAX/VMS systems we started using the same tools (assemblers, etc.) that the Coin-Op folks were using. Kind of painful, but their assemblers had some good ideas.

I'm going to pull that status report up, its on the other workstation and I need to pull it up. Kinda late and I need to close up for the night, but I'll post once I find it.

Curt

I also found a status report from Philip Suen stating that you had to take over the DK project because the original programmer wasn't delivering milestones, was being secretive and just wasn't sticking to schedule.

Was that DK or DK Jr? I seem to remember that being about DK Jr. but I could be wrong.

Okay just pulled up the Master backup from 9/4/1984 and I found a directory called UTIL which has about 53MB's of utils in it, I see AMAC, CAMAC, LINK65, CRASS65, and tons more... so I'll work on this tomorrow, post it up onto atarimuseum.com and post a link, should be a good start for everyone.

BTW... do you remember what the VGER database was for? Its on the backup and right now, it and CEO_MAIL are two apps which I've been unable to clear text access the contents. I've spoken with a few DG guys and there was never any kind of conversion or modern day app ever written, so it may be necessary to try and access them through a DG emulator.

I also found a status report from Philip Suen stating that you had to take over the DK project because the original programmer wasn't delivering milestones, was being secretive and just wasn't sticking to schedule.

Was that DK or DK Jr? I seem to remember that being about DK Jr. but I could be wrong.

Tempest

That was DK Junior.

I never wrote any code for it. The original programmer was fired before it was finished, but I don't remember who wound up completing it. Probably Jeff Milhorn (who was the "junior" programmer on it) and Kevin Sacher (who was managing the group by then).

I do remember that Dk Jr. was started in FORTH, and was an ego-driven disaster until that nonsense stopped.